The last Come Friday Forum before students leave for spring break kicked off Women’s History Month with a discussion celebrating women’s leadership throughout the college’s history. Each week, new faculty and students lead an engaging discussion based on a question they are curious about. The presenters of this Come Friday Forum were Jean Couture, the Director of Student Engagement and Leadership, and Saylor Garcia, a senior Politics and Peace and Justice double major. This discussion addressed the question, “How and where have women led Saint Anselm College in the past half-century?”

There were around 40 participants there for the discussion, both in person and virtually. Couture and Garcia started the conversation by highlighting the many women who have held leadership positions in the past 50 years and more. Though the presentation lasted around 15 minutes, it only began to cover the various women leaders the college has seen in its years of educating students. 

The forum was a celebration of what women have achieved in their time at Saint Anselm College, where students, faculty, and community members could learn about the history of the college and how far it has come. During Women’s History Month, Garcia says, “We should all be making extra effort to appreciate the women in our lives and all the hard work they do, on and off campus!”

The presentation began with a quote from Abbot Joseph Gerry: “Women should not be denied the advantage of our unique education in the liberal arts.” A nuanced discussion followed, providing a new perspective on many students’ experiences in their educational journey today. Couture said, “Talking about women in leadership helps us to show where women have influenced and led at the College, where we still have work to do, and keeps us working as a community toward equity on our campus for women.”

Professor Gary Bouchard from the English Department and Executive Director at the Humanities Institute, which hosts the Friday forums, provided much insight into how women have impacted the college. Something he shared was a reframing of the quote from Abbot Gerry. He said, “We no longer want to deprive Saint Anselm College of the strength that women bring to it.”

One participant from the community shared experiences of attending Saint Anselm College before and after women attended the school. Before the college accepted women, the students had no regard for their physical presentation. The attendee said, “You could be a pig.” However, once the change occurred, there was a collective change among students where people would clean themselves up after practices and athletics before going to the dining hall. When women could live on campus, the student body “grew up by a light-year.” 

The students and faculty did not have it easy, Bouchard noted. “All of them were just stepping into a very male world.” Being part of that group “took a lot of courage on any given week, to not just be in the job, but to innovate and to be taken seriously,” he said.

Professor Bouchard commented on how far we have come in the college’s diversity: “It’s an unfortunate part of the past. But we no longer think about male or female. We just think about leadership.”

Inviting women to bring their innovation and ideas to the table is essential. Female students and faculty can become industry and academic leaders at Saint Anselm College. Having that diversity in the college has to be intentional, not, as one attendee noted, “just alongside the men.”